The Tromsø Heart Study: A Multiple Regression Analysis of the Relationship between Coronary Risk Factors and Some Physical and Social Variables

Univariate analysis of the cross-sectional data of the Tromsø Heart Study revealed group differences in the levels of blood pressure and serum lipids. In order to isolate the contribution from each of the physical and social variables which characterized these groups, a multiple variate analysis was carried out with serum triglycerides, serum cholesterol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure as dependent variables. Besides age, height and weight, seasonal variation contributed substantially to the explanation of the variance of the dependent variables. The influence of the social variables was somewhat reduced compared to the univariate analysis, though most of them did remain significant also in the multivariate analysis. The explained percentage of the total variance ranged from 13% for systolic blood pressure to 26% for serum cholesterol.